Many types of human cancer are now believed to be caused by an imbalance of growth regulators within a cell. A decrease in negative control growth regulators and/or their deactivation can cause a cancerous condition. Further, an increase in positive control growth regulators can also cause a cancerous condition.
Since the identification of the first tumor suppressor gene, much effort in cancer research has been focused on the identification of new tumor suppressor genes and their involvement in human cancer. Many types of human cancers are thought to develop by a loss of heterozygosity of putative tumor suppressor genes not yet identified (Lasko et al., Annu. Rev. Genetics, 25, 281-296 (1991)) according to Knudson's "two-hit" hypothesis (Knudson, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 68, 820-823 (1971)).
One of the most studied tumor suppressor genes is the retinoblastoma susceptibility gene (rb), whose gene product (pRb) has been shown to play a key role in the regulation of cell division. In interphasic cells, pRb contributes to maintaining the quiescent state of the cell by repressing transcription of genes required for the cell cycle through interaction with transcription factors, such as E2F (Wagner et al., Nature, 352,189-190 (1991); Nevins, Science, 258, 424-429 (1992); and Hiebert et al., Genes Develop., 6, 177-185 (1992)). The loss of this activity can induce cell transformation as evidenced by the reversion of the transformed phenotype in pRb cells after replacement of a functional pRb (Huang et al., Science 242 1563-1565 (1988); Bookstein et al., Science, 247 712-715 (1990); and Sumegi et al., Cell Growth Differ., 1 247-250 (1990)).
Upon entrance into the cell cycle, pRb seems to be phosphorylated by cell cycle-dependent kinases (Lees et al., EMBO J. 10 4279-4290 (1991); Hu et al., Mol. Cell. Biol., 12 971-980 (1992); Hinds et al., Cell, 70 993-1006 (1992); Matsushime et al., Nature, 35 295-300 (1992)) which is thought to permit its dissociation from transcription factors and, hence, the expression of genes required for progression through the cell cycle. Noteworthily, the association of pRb with cell cycle regulators like cyclins and cell cycle-dependent kinases suggests a universal character to its function.
However, pRb involvement in human cancer has been restricted to a limited number of tumor types suggesting that .this hypothetically universal function may be exerted by other gene products in a cell type-specific manner. Consistently, knock out of the rb gene in mice affects only specific cell types and after several days of embryonic development (Jacks et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 68 820-823 (1992); Lee et al., Nature, 359 288-294 (1992); Clarke et al., Nature, 359 328-330 (1992)).
The ability of several transforming proteins from human DNA tumor viruses to activate cell proliferation has been a useful tool for the identification of cellular factors involved in the regulation of the cell cycle. Negative regulators of cell growth may thus be effective targets for inactivation by these viral proteins, as it occurs with the product of the retinoblastoma gene.
Adenovirus E1A, SV40 T antigen, and papillomavirus E7 are three viral proteins which have been found to bind to pRb. This binding is responsible for the release of transcription factors required for the expression of cell cycle genes (Nevins, Science, 258 424-429 (1992); Bandara et al., Nature, 351 494-497 (1991)).
A conserved motif found in the three viral proteins allows for interaction and complex formation with pRb (Moran, Curr. Op. Gen. Dev., 3 63-70 (1993)). In the case of the adenovirus E1A protein, this motif is located in the transforming domain 2, which is required for growth activation. The pRb-related product p107 also binds in this region (Egan et al., Mol. Cell. Biol., 8 3955-3959 (1988); Whyte et al., Cell, 56 67-75 (1989)) .
Domain 2 is also the site of interaction of an additional E1A-binding protein, p130 (Giordano et al., Oncogene, 1 481-485 (1991)). This has led to the suggestion that p130 has a structural relationship to pRb and p107 (Moran, Curr. Op. Gen. Dev., 3 63-70 (1993)).
The E1A-binding domain in pRb and p107 is a conserved region termed the "pocket region" (Kaelin et al., Mol. Cell. Biol,, 10 3761-3769 (1990); Ewin et al., Cell, 66 1155-1164 (1991)), and it is thought to play a primary role in the function of these proteins. The pocket is structurally formed by two regions A and B, which are conserved in pRb and p107 and separated by non-conserved spacers of different sizes in pRb and p107.
In addition to pRb and p107, there are other cellular E1A-binding proteins that have been identified by co-immunoprecipitation experiments using antibodies to E1A. These cellular proteins include the major polypeptides p300, p130, p60/cyclin A, and several other minor forms (Yee, et al., Virology 147 142-153 (1985); Harlow et al., Mol. Cell. Biol. 1 1579-1589 (1986); Giordano, et al., Cell 58 981-990 (1989); Giordano et al. Science 253 1271-1275 (1991)). Binding to the N-terminal region has been shown to be exclusive to p300 (Egan et al., Mol. Cell. Biol., 8 3955-3959 (1988); Whyte et al., Cell, 56 67-75 (1989); Stein et al., J. Virol., 64 4421-4427 (1990)), and pRb2 consistently failed to bind to this region. Both domains 1 and 2 of the E1A protein have been shown to be necessary for the E1A binding of the following set of proteins: pRb, p107, p60/cyclin A, and p130 (Egan et al., Mol. Cell. Biol., 8 3955-3959 (1988); Whyte et al., Cell, 56 67-75 (1989); Giordano et al. Science 253 1271-1275 (1991)). Furthermore, the E1A-928 mutant has been previously shown to bind to p107 and p60/cyclin A, but not to pRb and p130.
The association of pRb with transcription factors, such as E2F, occurs by interactions at the pocket region (Raychaudhuri et al., Genes Develop., 5 200-1207 (1991)) and, recently, p107 has also been shown to exert such a binding profile (Cao et al., Nature, 355 176-179 (1992)). Moreover, the pocket region is found mutated in several human cancers where a lack of function of the pRb protein is thought to be involved in the acquisition of the transformed phenotype (Hu et al., EMBO J., 9 1147-1153 (1990)); Huang et al., 1990).
There is a need for identification and sequencing of new rb-related genes that may have an involvement in cell growth inhibition. Genes related to rb and their protein products that also have tumor suppressor activity in specific cell types are needed. However, identification and sequencing of such new genes and their protein products would be surprising in view of the amount of previous research in this area.